Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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countstex
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by countstex »

kintaris wrote: January 22nd, 2018, 2:05 pm
countstex wrote: January 21st, 2018, 9:00 pm I never really had a problem with 3, I can't remember know what the actual 'thing' was that people fell out with??
I believe it was the drastic change of direction in the final third
Spoiler: show
where you effectively became an accountant/lawyer for 100 days before fighting a previous boss again
...that felt half-baked and anticlimatic. Technically speaking I wouldn't say anything was broken between 2 and 3. I think for most people I've spoken to and read, it was a conceptual issue. Still looked and felt like Fable up to that point.

As for the Horizon people making the fourth game, it's worth noting that they have set up an entirely separate studio and staffed from scratch. So while there will certainly be an over-arching company ethos that might bleed through, there's no real reason to expect any other similarity to Forza Horizon. Unless there's been a direct hire from the FH team that I've missed!
Ah yes, ok I recall that. I seem to remember...
Spoiler: show
it being 'broken' in that you could amass enough personal wealth that none of it really mattered in the end.
And as you say new team. Often a new team can produce a better sequel as they are attempting to recapture what we love about a franchise rather than trying to push it further, especially after a fair amount of time has passed.
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countstex
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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So MS are giving away all future games with Game Pass.... day 1! Basically subscribing means you;d never have to buy another Gears, Halo, Forza or indeed any XBOX exclusive game. That's a pretty strong sales point! £95 a year.. Even I could be tempted for that.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by Alex79 »

Microsoft would have really won this generation with deals like that - if only they had more exclusives. Everything they are doing is damn straight putting Sony to shame. They just don't have the games, though. In my opinion. There are a few I'd want to play, but I do think Sony have had the edge in that regard. Just a shame they can't touch MS for stuff like the subscription service and backwards compatibility.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I think that Microsoft missed out on a huge opportunity back in 2008 by not annexing Team Ninja / Tecmo as an official first-party studio when the latter was undergoing so much inner turmoil after the release of Ninja Gaiden 2. It would have been a perfect storm of benefits, as far as I can tell. Microsoft would have partially reinvigorated its brand in Japan instead of giving up on that market entirely, they would have added one character action game and one fighting game franchise to their exclusive portfolio otherwise sorely lacking in both, players would have continued to enjoy high-quality entries in these franchises for years to come, Tecmo would have gained the kind of financial security which would have prevented its implosion, and Itagaki wouldn't have been forced to leave his studio behind and go waste his talents on developing Devil's Third on a shoestring budget. Not to mention that Itagaki was one of the very few (if not the only) japanese developer who was genuinely enthusiastic about the Xbox platform.

Everybody wins, no?

Also, they left the Fable IP dormant for way too long. That's a charming WRPG franchise with a lot of untapped potential that deserved better than a handful of spin-offs. It could have had the success of The Witcher 3 if given proper development time and budget.

I think that the Xbox brand as a whole would be a lot more appealing now if it had exclusive AAA Ninja Gaiden, DoA and Fable titles coming out every three or four years, coupled with a handful of high-quality singular games like Nioh and Lost Odyssey.

Instead, they bet all their chips on Halo, Gears and Forza, and have spent the last 10 years losing consumers' mind share little by little. I haven't bought an Xbox One and don't plan on doing so in the future, but I probably would have if they had focused on developing a more diverse portfolio of exclusives. All the beefed-up tech and subscription deals in the world don't mean much when you're hurting on the software front.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I've never felt so convinced that Microsoft and their Xbox program is based around trends and media analysis that it currently is.

The heady 360 days seem such a distant past compared to how the platform is now, a huge diversity of games, genres and ideas all served up on a platform that seemed streets ahead of anything else in terms of interactivity and functionality.

I was there day one with the Xbox One because of the 360 and eventually grew tired of it's misfiring efforts probably 2 years into it's life.

My XBL subscription has elapsed after 8 years and I have no current desire to renew it, solely for messing around with on some Halo 5 MP with my mates.

It does make me sad, a little.

The exclusive games are drab and samey, Forza, Gears, Halo just doesn't kick it anymore for me. Those franchises will never develop anymore due to the backlash that fans may give because it's different. Or that's how it feels to me anyway.

It kind of put me off gaming for a while, or certainly extinguished a lot of my enthusiasm for it.

The game subscription service, where I agree is probably a good idea looking at Netflix and other subscription models, just doesn't add up for me - personally.

I'll play Crackdown, I'll play a new Halo but I'd not buy a console for those games like I did back in 2005.

I'm convinced MS has something planned and roll out has been delayed, tweaked to tie in with any wider picture that MS see for the platform, like a subscription service or how that can touch up these titles to make the most of their new super power console.

I just feel that whatever grand picture/plan they have for the platform and the mystery behind it, is harming the console in a worrying way.

Whatever MS plan to do they better start getting it out there soon I think. E3 is going to be a big opportunity for MS this year to set the record straight and indicate their approach to their platform.

I've not really based this on any serious facts, it's just my personal feelings with my previous platform of choice.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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It's interesting how much personal taste comes into these things. I say that as I have the opposite view.

Coming into this generation I was fully behind Sony. I had both a 360 and a PS3, and was certainly way more invested in the MS side at that point. But Sony seemed to be going the way I wanted, support for indie devs, promoting their games, no Kinect, and some great original games coming. They had everything going for them, and indeed sold a shit tonne of consoles and became the dominant platform. And then... well didn't do much in my opinion. They invented their own Kinect in the Playstation VR, sure it's a nice idea but VR still falls into the gimmick hole of Kinect in my eyes, and at a far greater price! Within, I would say, 18 months of being centred on the PS4 I was back on my XBOX One. For all the lack of exclusives that some many bemoan it still feels like more of a community that Sony has ever managed.

Then MS started doing everything right. Backwards compatibility that returned my extensive 360 Digital library to instant access. A truly improved console with the power to enhance all those old games, as well as add the bells and whistles to new releases. And most of those Indie games I like to mess around with.. they all end up on the MS platform as much as Sony's. I still have my launch PS4 of course, if I want to check out the likes of Zero Dawn, Hellblade, or my beloved No Man's Sky. But the XBOX is still my home.

So yup. All down to preference. It just depends on where your priorities lie. As a technology loving gamer, I'm always going to favour the most innovative system that can give me as close to PC gaming as possible. Add in my back catalogue, and even original XBOX games (A system I never owned) and I can't see myself calling anywhere else home for a long, long time.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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Oh Fable was never dormant, we were working our butts off. Most of what we did never got as far as being shown to anyone though. This is the same for any studio of that size though.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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Well, I meant the IP itself, not the dev team.

Speaking purely in terms of released products, the last main series title came out in 2010, only followed by a handful of spin-offs plus the remastered edition of the first game since. I just don't think that Microsoft is (was?) utilizing the IP to its full potential, that's all.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by Joshihatsumitsu »

Having never got rid of my 360 library (or original Xbox library for that matter) backwards compatibility is a moot point. So, for me, if that's your main selling point, meh.

I agree completely that it will come down to a matter of personal taste, and that my personal taste is my own, but it's reassuring that other people beside myself also feel the overwhelming sense of indifference towards the Xbox One and Microsofts current trajectory for the platforms future. The comfort of confirmation bias I guess.

Cuphead still looks incredible though!
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I took the plunge, lets see what all this 4K is about.

Image
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KSubzero1000
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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Nice shoes, man. :P

Have fun!
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I feel like I might be partly responsible...
:o :oops: :twisted:
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I’m not going to lie, I did spare more than a slight thought about it after chatting the other night :lol: .

I ended up doing some research into the smallest screen I could get, that would suit the requirements for an X (4KUHD, HDR, low input lag and high refresh rate) and this was on offer for £369 – which was low enough for me to start to considered making the upgrade to an X.

Then, I wondered if there were any Scorpio editions still out there and found a brand new still sealed one on eBay for £409.

It something I was always going to do, the stars just had to line up for me and they did on this occasion.

Just got to hold on until my house/office is finished and I can set it all up and mess about with it 😊 - about a week hopefully.
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countstex
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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Welcome to the Scorpio club! :D Warning, an increased interest in backwards compatible enhanced games is highly likely! ;)
kintaris

Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by kintaris »

So State of Decay 2 seems to be dividing opinions somewhat, though only a handful are praising it, including my fellow podcaster Mark.

It seems the main complaint is a bog-standard open-world setup combined with bugs galore - Eurogamer in particular got quite savage about the latter. Weirdly, Mark barely experienced any bugs and a lot of them disappeared with the first patch, so his opinion has ended up looking skewed towards the positive.

Anyone here giving it a go? I'm so tired of zombies so I won't bother!

It's still not looking great for Microsoft on the exclusives front as we march on to E3, though the hype really wasn't there for SoD2 in the first place.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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I was looking forward to it, but I'm not so sure now. The first game didn't get great reviews either, and I loved it. However I'm not seeing a whole lot here to differentiate it from the first game.

I haven't seen it expressly stated anywhere, but some are hinting that the resource management stuff is the same as the first game - in that your supplies get consumed while you are logged out and not playing the game. This means that every time you play, you have to restock all your supplies before you can get round to playing proper. The devs were not receptive to changing that at the time, and if it's the same thing again I don't know whether I'll pick it up.

It's also exclusive to Windows 10 on PC, and only available from the Windows store. I'm sure it'll appear at other outlets later on but it seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot on this one.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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542 comments on that Eurogamer review now; clearly the first game did something right.

I’m a bit conflicted now; we shouldn’t be saying, we’re ok with buggy messes, but it’s such an intriguing game.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

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Chopper wrote: May 19th, 2018, 11:42 am we shouldn’t be saying, we’re ok with buggy messes
It's not like that has ever stopped anyone before, considering Bethesda's cachet within the industry.
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by Chopper »

It was your (old) comment on the mass effect andromeda thread that has put this to the front of my mind :)
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Re: Microsoft Xbox news and discussion thread

Post by KSubzero1000 »

Oh snap, I just went and re-read that and I sound like a complete ideologue, what the hell?! :lol:

2017 me: frothing at the mouth over glitches in a game he's not playing. Stay classy.
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